U.s. Navy Deals With Pregnancy

August 20, 1989|By DAVID EVANS Columnist

SAN DIEGO — Practically at the end of the gangplanks of ships tied up at one of the Navy's biggest bases is a building that symbolizes one of the toughest problems facing the fleet today. It's a prenatal clinic, where pregnant sailors can obtain the kind of examinations, counseling and care that, until a few years ago, was virtually unheard of in the armed forces.

But then, unlike today, the Navy didn't have 56,000 women in its ranks. They are now found in unprecedented numbers both at sea and ashore. Technically proscribed from combat duty, women are nevertheless found in vital jobs on many of the logistics and support ships that accompany the mighty carriers and cruisers.

But at any given time about 8 percent of the Navy's women are pregnant, and this simple biological fact has stirred enormous controversy. Let's face it, morning sickness - like chronic seasickness - isn't conducive to a hard day's work chipping paint and standing watch. Men have had to take up the slack, and Navy men of all ranks have been voicing concerns about the lost duty hours among pregnant women, the aggravating effect on already-critical personnel shortages and the attendant affects on unit morale.

Some of these complaints may represent the last flaring embers of male chauvinism. Then again, some normally stoic and senior commanding officers were telling Pentagon officials that pregnancy was their single biggest readiness problem. It took a Navy nurse, Cmdr. Judy Glenn, who's now in charge of the Navy's first prenatal clinic here, to get to the facts of the matter.

"We saw a growing number of pregnancies at the local naval hospital, but we did not have a handle on the situation," she said. Was the pregnancy rate for Navy women higher than among their civilian counterparts? How many Navy pregnancies were occurring out of wedlock, with the obvious implications for child care when single parents go to sea?

For the next 11 months, Glenn compiled facts on 789 active-duty pregnancies in the San Diego area. Here's what she found:

Forty-one percent of the women were single. Of these, four out of five were in the bottom, lowest-paid enlisted ranks; in other words, most pregnancies were occurring among those least able to afford child care.

The overall pregnancy rate, said Glenn, appeared to be much higher among Navy women than among their civilian peers, perhaps twice as high.

About half the pregnancies were not planned. No surprise here. "About 50 percent of overall pregnancies in America aren't planned, either," Glenn said.

Twelve percent of the expectant mothers suffered from chlamydia, a venereal disease with symptoms similar to gonorrhea. About a third of the pregnant women didn't seek medical care until the second trimester or later. The vast majority of them remained single after childbirth and opted to stay in the Navy.

Although there were gaps in her study, the initial findings "stunned" the Navy brass, Glenn said. Here was evidence confirming the widespread perception the Navy had a big-time problem.

But in many respects, the findings should not have been such a shock, Glenn asserted. "The Navy's a reflection of society," she said. "Teen-age pregnancies? Sex education? We have these problems, too." At the same time, she said, "Women are costly to medicine; they're health-care consumers." When the Navy planned on adding 50,000 women, she said, the studies addressed berthing, the necessary barracks and modifications to ship's compartments but "not the long-term implications for health care."

The Navy's response was laudably swift. Instead of suppressing Glenn's work, a three-year study, now underway, was launched to collect Navy-wide data on pregnancy.

A more comprehensive sex-education program was implemented in Navy boot camp, for both sexes. The program, called "Health, Pregnancy and Parenting," is an attempt to go beyond the usual scarifying VD lectures to the larger responsibilities of a sexually active life and parenthood.

To deal with the pregnancies, the Navy is opening more prenatal clinics to take some of the outpatient load off the hospitals.

"When the military puts effort into something, they can make it work, as we've already seen in the Navy's alcohol abuse and drug rehabilitation programs," Glenn said.

"We'll see it in sex education, too."

* David Evans is a military affairs correspondent with the Chicago Tribune.